


(Def)iance

by hedgerose



Series: (Def)inition 'verse [2]
Category: Glee
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-28
Updated: 2012-07-28
Packaged: 2017-11-10 22:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/471379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hedgerose/pseuds/hedgerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma's parents don't have to mark her for her to know that she's defective.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(Def)iance

**Author's Note:**

> Contains: Mentions of slavery, suicide, disordered eating, OCD, physical and sexual abuse.

Emma's parents don't have to mark her for her to know that she's defective.

So it's kind of a shock when she turns seventeen and they haven't-- they haven't seen her quirks and her inclination towards extreme cleanliness as something that deserves being marked. She has a future and no idea what to do with it. She applies late to colleges and gets accepted at a few; she decides on the Ohio State University because it's close enough to home that she can run back to her parents if she can't deal with college. Her mother refuses to pay for a single room, and Emma is terrified that it's some ploy to force her freakishness to cause her to fail, but she goes to school in September regardless, because she can be stronger than that.

She tells her roommate that she's a neat freak at the beginning of the year and Lisbeth only snaps at her once for staying up too late cleaning (Lisbeth has a test the next day but there is laundry Emma hasn't done and she has to count with her hands after putting each piece in the basket). Emma flees to the library to organize the books in the developmental psychology section because she needs to put something in order. They both apologize, the next day.

At the end of her freshman year she decides to major in Social Work. Her mother smiles patronizingly and asks her if she really thinks she'll be able to make it on her own-- she calls Emma _freaky-deakey_ and asks her how many times she'd cleaned the room during the year (three hundred and seventeen-- once per day and twice on weekends) and how many dates she'd gone on (zero; Emma finds the thought of someone else's mouth--someone else's _germs_ \-- abhorrent). Her mother smiles tightly and tells her that next year, she's sure to find a nice redhead who will ensure the continuation of gingers.

She works all summer filing for her father's dentist until she's saved enough money to pay for a tiny studio apartment for the next school year, so she doesn't have to share with anyone else or rely on her parents for anything except tuition.

Emma has a breakdown during her junior year that sends her closer to the line than she's been before (once she has a job she sends a check to the OSU mental health services every year because if not for them she'd be a Def or dead). It sets her back a semester, so it takes her four and a half years, but she graduates cum laude and is immediately accepted for an internship at the Columbus branch of the Department of Labor.

Government work isn't what she'd imagined going into, but she finds that the structure appeals to her. Everything has its place; there is an order to be followed and procedures put in place for almost every event. She misses working with people, sometimes, so once her internship is over, she applies to be a Foster.

The people she ends up Fostering run the gamut from convicts serving out a sentence to three-year-olds with Downs syndrome. Emma does her best for them, always, and her numbers are good. She gets her Defs good placements, she makes sure they take advantage of the opportunities available to them in the system (Brian becomes Charlotte; Adie gets meds for her depression; Suzy takes the classes in business that let her stay out of the system once she's done with her time in it).

Emma is very good at her job; her Defs like her and she has co-workers who don't think she's too much of a freak. If she sometimes still spends hours cleaning at night (it's not every night, but some days are bad), then at least it doesn't affect her work. Even with all of her problems, she can still be good at her job.

Her personal life is _the-less-said-the-better_ ; her mother had stopped asking about nice redheaded men after the second year of _no, I haven't met anyone_ during Emma's monthly phone call. She lives alone in an apartment that is just _hers_ \-- she knows exactly where everything is and how often the floors get polished and maybe sometimes she imagines the perfect man for her (he'll have hair that is any color but _red_ , he'll be kind and gentle and not think she's _too_ weird), but she goes to sleep alone.

Most nights, she's all right.

* * *

Emma meets Will Schuester when she's 28 and in her second year as a Foster at the Department of Labor. He's a high school teacher with a failing marriage and one of his students has just been marked; he comes to Emma with some of his other students to try to keep his student out of the underside of the Defective system. She really appreciates what he's doing for his student. He's cute, with his sweater-vests, curly hair, and a mouth that she can actually imagine kissing-- and she does imagine it once or twice. She thinks about pressing her lips to his, soft and closed and not wet or messy, but pleasant all the same.

There's the way he'd first looked at her, like she was the center of everything and just for that one moment, she'd felt _perfect_. Will is the kind of man that she _could_ fall for, maybe, and it makes her more hopeful than she has been in a long time that maybe someday she'll find someone who could be _it_ for her. Maybe Will could be that man for her, but--

She _has_ to stop and think about this. Will lives in Lima, which is almost two hours away on a good day. He's married, too, even though he complains to Emma about his wife (she spends all his money; she's pregnant and he has no idea how they're going to support a baby on what he makes alone). Emma see too many Defs who remind her of herself to ever, _ever_ take a deliberate step closer to the line between being free and being a Def. Will is skating just at the edge of the poverty line and she can't let herself slip. She's the slightest bit put off by him when he compliments her hair and her sweater (and indirectly, her looks, which she still feels self-conscious about, even at 28, because she can't match up to the girls in the magazines she doesn't buy at the supermarket). 

But he makes her smile, and that's-- it's hard to say no to that.

"I think Quinn should come home with me," Will says to her one afternoon when they're alone in her office, trying to get things settled with Quinn's contract.

"I'm... not sure that's a good idea," she replies cautiously. Even though Will looks nice, even though there's nothing she knows about him that would indicate he might not be the best placement for Quinn, he's not the primary financial backer, and there are procedures to follow. It's one of the most comforting parts of her job, but it's not reassuring right now, because she wants to say _yes_. But this is about Quinn, not about Emma. She's just the intermediary in all of this.

How _would_ Quinn feel in a house with two adults, just like the one she's just been removed from? Emma's only met Will-- she's never met his wife, but if what Will says about her is true, then Emma has another reason to at least delay placing Quinn with the Schuesters. Will is Quinn's teacher, and not a father himself-- he's never _been_ a father, never had to consider the needs of a child or a teenager (and Quinn, for all that she is dealing with this with more grace than Emma can imagine herself showing, is still just fifteen). Would he make her do her homework and scare her dates, or would he-- would he let her still _be_ a child? Kurt Hummel, from the few times she's talked to him, seems determined to let Quinn keep on as she has been. 

"I've talked with Terri," (she's the wife, the one with the outrageous requests and strange world-view, the one who believes that Will can afford to buy a house and have a baby on what he makes as a teacher), "and she's on board-- we'd love to have Quinn. I think we could be really good for her."

"The majority of the funding for Quinn's contract doesn't come from you," she says, hedging, because she _likes_ Will and she doesn't want to have to say no to him. Quinn has to stay her priority, though, and Quinn needs someone who will be stable for _years_ \-- and as much as she likes him, she doesn't quite see that in Will's financial history. "I'd have to get the approval of the primary financial backer before I can make a placement."

"Of course," he says, nodding sympathetically at her. "No, I understand. I'll talk to Mr. Hummel and get back to you." He starts to rise, but she gestures him back down into his chair.

" _I'll_ have to get approval," she repeats. "It's procedure, and Mr. Schuester--"

"--Will--"

"Will, you'd need to be able to prove that you were financially capable of supporting a Def long-term, if you were to be the primary Holder on Quinn's contract," she says. "Based on the financial records you've provided me with, that doesn't seem very likely. Quinn is going to need a lot of medical attention, as well as new clothes and things for the baby. You'd be supporting two people, not just one. The Department has medical facilities available, but we're the nearest office that offers them and Columbus is a pretty far drive from Lima."

"I understand that," he says. "And Terri and I have talked about it-- she's willing to go back to work, and I think we can do it."

"Even with what your wife might make-- I'm sorry, but the answer is most likely going to be no, unless the primary backer-- Kurt Hummel?-- is willing to co-sign for you. This isn't about you," she tries to explain, "this is about what's best for Quinn. I'm sorry, Will, but there are procedures."

"I--" he starts, clearly taken aback. "You're not serious. Kurt is _sixteen_ , how did he manage to--"

"I'm afraid I can't disclose that information," she says. "Now, I _will_ be discussing the matter of Quinn's placement with Kurt, since it will be a shared contract, and I will be sure to inform you if he'd prefer that she be placed with you. It's all I can offer, and if it's something that he is willing to do, then I will be sure to let you know."

Emma knows that she's closing this door behind her. She wants to say _Yes, of course I'll work it out; I'll speak with Mr. Hummel and get right back to you._ But she _can't_ , not in this job. Will Schuester could be _it_ for Emma, but she can't take that chance. Not right now.

The next day, she barely has to ask before Kurt says, "Of course she's coming home with me. Who else could figure out how to shop for the horror show her body's going to be?" He rolls his eyes. "Believe me, Ms. Pillsbury, I have no interest in Quinn aside from the fact that she _was_ an amazing captain for the Cheerios." She's fairly sure that with that statement he's gay, but his father's there, looking as mid-western as they come, and if it weren't for the way he looks at Kurt when Kurt isn't looking back, she'd wonder how long it would be before Kurt was the one she was trying to save.

She smiles brightly at Kurt and says, "Of course, Mr. Hummel. Sign here, please," and hands him a pen.

(And she has to stop thinking about it as saving kids, because her heart breaks every time she can't.)

Sometimes, after Quinn's contract is signed and she goes to live with the Hummels, Emma thinks of Will and she's regretful, because she hadn't seen him again after that contract was signed (would she have wanted a man who would cheat on his wife?, she wonders, and it's probably for the best she'll never know). The distance between Lima and Columbus is too far for them to run into each other casually, and there's no excuse to call him and ask how Quinn is doing. But it's the wrong time and the wrong place, and Emma has her Defs to worry about, so she puts her thoughts of Will aside (eventually, she stops dreaming about his eyes and the way he made her smile).

* * *

For the next few years Kurt renews Quinn's contract like clockwork. Emma's observations turn up nothing of interest; Quinn is as happy as she can be, and her daughter is adorable. Kurt and his father bully the school system into allowing Quinn to attend classes, even if they don't award her a diploma when she's done, and Emma thinks that Quinn's life is almost indistinguishable from an average high school girl's except for the bracelet on her wrist and the toddler on her hip. 

Emma dates Carl-the-dentist for about a year before he calls it off. Her parents would _hate_ him so she never introduces them; he helps her with her problems but he can't fix them and that frustrates him enough that he can't-- he can't _deal_. He doesn't call her defective when he breaks up with her but that's what she hears instead of _frigid_. She's okay with not having sex-- it's messy and it's _loud_ , from what she understands-- but Carl isn't, and she hates that she can't give him what he wants. She misses the comfort of having someone else around, of waking up warm and happy together, but she doesn't need the sex. 

Mostly, she's content alone. She likes her co-workers (she has lunch with them most days, even) and she sees her parents once a year. The year after Quinn doesn't graduate from high school, Emma's cleanliness takes a sharp swing up: after she spends her lunch hour carefully washing and then removing the peels from a bunch of grapes until she starts crying, silently, Shanie gently reminds her that the counselling services offered at the DoL are also available to the people who work there.

"We all get burnt out," Shanie says, sitting in the chair across from Emma's desk. "I think it might help, and there are confidentiality protections for us."

"I don't-- it's usually not that much of a problem," Emma says.

"Please, Emma-- at least think about it?" Shanie asks. "I just want you to be happy-- we all do."

Emma's thought about it a lot. Every time things get bad, she thinks about it, about the problem that she (probably) has (she doesn't ever say OCD, much less _Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder_ , because putting names on things makes them easier to put in a box). It takes her another month (three days of missed work because her apartment isn't _right_ ; there's dust that only she can see and she measures her curtains) before she makes an appointment and hesitates her way through her first session. Her hands are tight with bleach and soap and water, the inside of her cheek is bitten raw from trying to control herself from organizing Marsha's cubicle or Shanie's mess of a cork-board.

It takes her _months_ , and her therapist tries three different meds before they find one that works well and has the fewest side effects and it... it gets _better_. She doesn't have those awful compulsions to clean all the time-- they're intermittent and still terrible, but she has methods of dealing with them and she calms down. She has more _time_ (she teaches herself to knit and all of her co-workers get scarves or hats for Christmas) and she doesn't feel like she's stretched too far any more.

Her hands heal from the bleaching and the constant washing; she finds a new balance. She and her therapist haven't had to work through a major episode, not yet, and she finds herself grateful that they have reached this place before something inside her breaks.

* * *

The one thing that Emma hates more than anything is mess, and that's what Jordan's room is. There's stuff everywhere and it's covered in-- in _something_ that's red and viscous under her shoes-- and there's something scrawled on the wall, and Jordan is--

Jordan really isn't, not any more.

* * *

__

REQUEST FOR INTERNAL INQUEST

OHIO DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

AUGUST 28, 2015

Following the suicide of Jordan A. 098-492-1905 (July 3, 2015), I requested access to the files of Defectives under the care of Foster Joseph Carthy, and was given permission to view them. 

In my view, Carthy has a dangerous disregard for the health and safety of the Defectives in his care. They frequently return to the Department of Labor in poor health; they are underfed, severely neglected, or mentally unbalanced. A statistically significant percentage (19 out of 87 cases) have developed eating disorders or patterns of self-harm since coming into Carthy's care. 

I do not believe that Carthy causes or provokes these imbalances himself; rather, I believe that he contracts the Defectives to Holders who he knows may damage them due to the financial rewards for doing so. He uses his right of override for Fosters who have not passed a background check 54% of the time, as compared to a 4% average for the rest of the Fosters at the Columbus DoL. His Defectives perform one-on-one work 37% more often than the average of other Defectives, and are 59% more likely to come back and be placed with the medical or psychiatric units, occasionally both.

In light of my findings, I am formally requesting a further Internal Inquest into Joseph Carthy's practices as a Foster at the Columbus Department of Labor.

Please see the attached files for reference.

Sincerely,

Emma Pillsbury.

* * *

The inquest into Joseph Carthy is almost as messy as Jordan's room had been, but Emma works through it, reading file after file and interviewing Def after Def. Alfred turns Emma's Defs over to Shanie temporarily, letting her take a break from caretaking so that she can focus on _this_. She can't do _people_ right now; people are too messy and too un-focused and _wet_. Her therapist calls her three times for an appointment before she makes one and it's just like that first time again-- Emma can hardly speak about what she'd found.

Instead she reads through all of Joseph's files. She doesn't know Joseph very well at all-- he works at the other end of the building from her and is frequently out on observations and check-ins for his Defs. Still, it feels strange to be digging into a colleague's work like this, even one she doesn't know.

She reads post-mortems and physicals, transcripts of psychiatric sessions. She talks to Fiona and Madeline and Jon and records every word they say ( _I have a little girl somewhere out there and I don't-- held me underwater until I wasn't-- I was sixteen and I--_ ). She cries when she gets home, because if she starts crying at work she'll never stop. The stories she pieces together aren't unusual-- everyone has a few Defs that break in the system-- but it is rare that one Foster would have so many. There are averages that they all strive to reach, and some of Joseph's numbers are so far off that she almost can't believe he hasn't been censured before.

When she finishes her research she distills it into a twelve-page report and turns it in to Alfred. Her hands are shaking but her eyes are clear. "What did you find?" he asks.

"I think you should read the report, sir," she says. 

"Give me your personal opinion," Alfred says, looking straight at her. "You're a good judge of character-- you have good numbers. Do you think Joseph is a problem, Emma?"

"Absolutely," she states. "He's-- it's in the report, sir." Joseph Carthy is part of the reason that at least a dozen Defs have died, she is certain of it, and while she dislikes speaking ill of a colleague, this is something she can't let slide.

"I'll take this under consideration," Alfred says. "But it's not easy to hire Fosters, Emma-- even if what you've found is bad, it's not likely that he'll be fired." He looks genuinely sorry when he says this.

It turns out not to matter, though, because what she's found is worse than bad, and Joseph quits under pressure, allowed to make a more-or-less graceful exit after fifteen years with the DoL. 

"Jesus, girl," Shanie says at lunch the next day. Everyone is almost vibrating with tension, skittish around each other until they can figure out who might be hiding the same way Joseph had been. "Was it really that bad?"

Emma presses her lips together. "Some of it, yes," she says. "I mean, some of the things he did were things that all of us do, but some of it-- they're _kids_ , Shanie, and I just couldn't-- it was too much."

Shanie shrugs. "We all see bad things, Emma. Not everyone is bothered by the mess, like you are," she says, then stumbles all over an apology. "Shit, Emma, I'm sorry, I didn't mean--"

"It's okay," Emma says, because Shanie probably _didn't_ really mean it. It doesn't make it any easier to hear. "I know you didn't. And I know that everyone is wondering if I'm going to _turn_ on them next, but it's not-- I didn't want to do this, Shanie."

"I'm sorry, Emma," Shanie says again. "It's just going to take people a little while to start trusting you again."

* * *

Emma ends up with the majority of Joseph's Defs in addition to her own after he resigns. She refuses to renew one-on-one contracts on any of his Defs immediately without review, and she is so glad of it when the first wave of them come in. Some of them are fine-- some are in good homes or businesses, doing meaningful work that uses their skills. 

Some of them are less than fine. Kyrie has a broken arm that's been set badly and left to heal crooked; Nathan refuses to stand in any room Emma enters and won't speak to her above a whisper. In her first six months with Joseph's Defs she oversees three post-mortems (two suicides and one death from natural causes) and the excavation of one lonely grave outside a house five times the size of the one Emma had grown up in. The tracker in the Def's bracelet was still pinging forlornly when the Def's contract was up and she didn't come back in; it took Emma another week to make it out to Pittsburgh and check things out.

Her co-workers don't look at her suspiciously any more after that.

Blaine is just another of Joseph's Defs who come back to the Columbus DoL-- he's more or less whole, so she leaves him alone for the first week to let him re-acclimate to the DoL. At the end of that week one of the kitchen staff comes to her and says that she thinks Blaine's either hoarding food or not eating at all, because he's not eating at meals but his plate is coming back clean. He's losing weight he didn't have to start with. It means a medical intervention in the end, because it's like Blaine has forgotten how to eat between leaving his Holders and returning to the DoL. Emma looks at his file and it isn't the first time he's done this; she wonders how much of those first notes ( _Holder M. Kyle reports that Blaine frequently refuses to eat_ ) are elaborate exaggerations or falsehoods spun up by Joseph and how much is the truth.

Emma refuses to send him back out on the one-on-one contract when the request comes in; Blaine is still in the medical wing and won't be stable enough for outside work for a while. She doesn't tell him that he's been re-requested by Emily Azeh and by Maria Kyle now that he's back at the DoL and technically available for purchase. She turns them down-- she turns down everyone who comes for Blaine during that first year. 

She has close to a hundred Defs to take care of and it is so frustrating to not be able to give them the attention they deserve. She doesn't have enough time to get to know any of them beyond passing conversation aside from the half-dozen of them who make it a point to come see her. 

* * *

It takes a few years, but she hears from Quinn again outside of regular evaluations. She's out in New York now, and she needs to change Fosters because her Holder-- Kurt, Emma thinks is his name-- is establishing permanent residency. 

Emma doesn't really know anyone out at the New York City DoL, but she asks around and Shanie does, so she makes sure that Quinn is settled with her new Foster (and Beth, who must at least be in kindergarten by now). 

She works and she goes home; sometimes she thinks about dating, about finding a nice man who can deal with her strangeness. No, she reminds herself firmly, she needs to find a man who can accept her OCD (because sometimes it's good to own her diagnosis), not deal with it, because Emma is more than her neatly ordered shoes and anti-bacterial wipes. If she dates someone it will not be someone who loves her _in spite_. 

One day she runs into Will Schuester at the grocery store and they have coffee; he tells her that he's divorced, now ( _Terri, my ex, she's crazy, I was so glad to get out of that--_ ), and that maybe sometime they could--

She goes for coffee with him twice more after that first time and he's still the man he was when Quinn was first marked; he still makes her smile.

He's still teaching down in Lima and his kids still do moderately well in show choir competitions. He hasn't changed very much in the years since she'd seen him, but she has, and she doesn't know if they fit together the same way any more. It's a long drive from Lima to Columbus, too, and they drift apart slowly. They kiss after their third date and it's nothing like it was with Carl-- she and Will click, but it's not enough. Someday maybe they'll run into each other for a third time and they'll both be in the same place, but right now, it's not enough.

* * *

Offers for Blaine's contract start coming in again once he's re-listed as available; she lets him make the decision as to whether or not he would like to take the contract that is offered and he says _no_ time after time, sounding inches more desperate with each refusal.

Eventually she stops asking him-- she can't un-list him, but she stops bringing him contracts and prospective Holders. Once he realizes what she's done he looks at her gratefully for a week and gestures thanks with open palms and silence. It's better than having him kneel, so she nods back to him.

At the DoL, Emma is strange because she _doesn't_ push her Defs into one-on-one contracts; she doesn't care about the money that comes with them because she has been so careful about saving money. She doesn't want to come close to the line again like she had back in college, so she is cautious and she goes to therapy and she doesn't put herself in situations that encourage her need to clean. 

She grows increasingly disenchanted with the DoL, after they refuse requests that are in the best interests of her Defs. The art program for Defs with learning disabilities is drastically cut, despite her pleas, and it's becoming harder and harder to find the resources she used to be able to access-- she can't get her Defs time with the psychologists (no one can, it's not just her), there are fewer opportunities for short-term Defs to learn the life skills that will keep them out of the system once they finish their term of service.

Eventually, she does find a placement for Blaine-- with Quinn's Holder, oddly enough-- and puts him out of her mind, aside from the evaluations she has to do. His Holder calls her in a panic one night because Blaine's eating disorder has re-surfaced and she goes over Blaine's work history with him, line by line, remembering what it was like to look at him those first few weeks back at the DoL and worry every second. Blaine is still fragile, it seems-- his down-time at the DoL glued his parts back together but didn't fix the cracks, and he's broken open again, in New York and hundreds of miles away.

She goes out to New York herself a few months later, because Kurt is exhausted from helping Blaine with his problems, and it's the choice between helping him out and having Blaine returned-- not for lack of care or effort, but Kurt hasn't been trained to do this. Kurt comes back to Ohio-- visiting family, she thinks-- and she goes to try to help make Blaine into something whole. It's not the first time she lets one of her Defs see her insecurities and her... strangeness, but Blaine smiles at her and he _gets_ it. They spend a week talking about and around his former Holders and she can see him trying to integrate his experiences, be the Def-- the _person_ \-- he is now and have all of the memories and experiences from when he was Joseph's. He struggles-- he throws a bowl of half-shelled peanuts across the room and yells at her over dinner. 

But they build him up, piece by piece and inch by inch, until he is standing tall again when Kurt comes home. 

* * *

She's not quite sure what she expected Kurt to do with Blaine's file after she left it for him to find. But she doesn't get another panicked call, so she hopes that Kurt has done something good with it-- talked through it with Blaine, let Blaine make the decision whether or not to go back through it all again.

She doesn't expect what happens, though. Kurt wants to change _everything_ \-- she's never been so pleased about the fact that she may lose her job.

Kurt calls her the night before the ads go to print, telling her what's going on. "I'm sorry for dragging you into this," he says. 

"Are Blaine and Quinn okay with it?" she asks, because her first thought will always be of the Defs-- they can't protect themselves, and so that's what she's there for. She doesn't care about her own personal consequences, she only cares about her Defs.

"Quinn was ready years ago," he responds. "Blaine is-- he's less certain, but he's committed. I think he wants the bill to pass more than he wants his ad to be published, but he knows the connection between those two events so he's... okay with it."

"If you're sure," she says. "And if you need me to do anything-- make a statement, talk to the press-- let me know, and I'll see what I can do."

She types up her letter of resignation from the Department of Labor that same night, because it's best to be prepared.

A week later, Emma leaves the letter on Alfred's desk just like she'd left Blaine's file on Kurt's, and it feels like the same kind of final offering: this is what I have.

Alfred calls her that night, and all he says is, "Give ‘em hell, Emma."

She's thirty-eight, and her future is wide open.

She's thinking about New York.


End file.
